178 A JOURNEY IN BRAZIL. 
names of the father and mother are Pedro Manuel and 
Michelina. He is a tall, handsome fellow, whose chief 
occupation seems to be that of standing about in pictu- 
resque attitudes, and watching his rather pretty wife, as 
she bustles round in her various work of grating or 
pressing or straining the mandioca, generally with her 
baby astride on her hip, the Indian woman's favorite way 
of carrying her child. Occasionally, however, Pedro Man- 
uel is aroused to bear some part in the collecting ; and the 
other day, when he brought in some specimens which seemed 
to him quite valueless, Mr. Agassiz rewarded him with a 
chicken. His surprise and delight were great, perhaps a 
little mingled with contempt for the man who would barter 
a chicken for a few worthless fishes, fit only to throw into 
the river. 
Last evening, with some difficulty, we induced Laudigari 
to play for us on a rough kind of lute or guitar, a favorite 
instrument with the country people, and used by them 
as an accompaniment for dancing. When we had him 
fairly en train with the music, we persuaded Esperanga 
and Michelina to show us some of their dances ; not 
without reluctance, and with an embarrassment which 
savored somewhat of the self-consciousness of civilized life, 
they stood up with two of our boatmen. The dance is 
very peculiar ; so languid that it hardly deserves the name. 
There is almost no movement of the body ; they lift the 
arms, but in an angular position with no freedom of motion, 
snapping the fingers like castanets in time to the music, 
and they seem rather like statues gliding from place to 
place than like dancers. This is especially true of the 
women, who are still more quiet than the men. One of 
the boatmen was a Bolivian, a finely formed, picturesque- 
